The present invention is generally directed to a diagnostic service that can be employed on devices that also include a device agent for managing the device as part of a device management platform. In particular embodiments of the present invention, a device agent and a diagnostic service can be installed on a large number of thin client devices to facilitate management of the devices from the cloud.
A number of different device management platforms exist including, for example, Dell's Cloud Client Manager. These device management platforms can allow a number of different types of devices, including, for example, thin clients, zero clients, tablets, and smartphones, to be monitored and managed from a single location (i.e., from the cloud). To allow this monitoring and management, a device agent is installed on each device so that the management server can communicate with the device agent to implement a desired type of monitoring or management. Such devices will hereafter be referred to as “managed devices.”
Although these device agents are effective when operating properly, if a device agent becomes unresponsive or otherwise fails to operate correctly, it will typically become impossible to monitor or manage the managed device from the management server. When this occurs, it will typically be necessary to physically visit the location of the managed device to perform a diagnosis of the failure. However, in environments where there are possibly hundreds or thousands of managed devices spread geographically, it may not be feasible to do so.